Also this week:
Special Report on Aging
Eat right for your age
Bill Phillips & Jack La Lanne: Exercise for maintaining youth
Health briefs
Web resources for healthy living after 50
What your doctor should look for in your regular checkups

At 50+ they (still) got game

With a spring in their step and smiles on their faces, these senior athletes still have the get up and go to get out and play well beyond retirement.

by Kevin Markey

A recent Nike commercial featured a bunch of guys playing a friendly but competitive game of baseball on a sunny diamond. We're used to such images from spring training. Except in this case, the players are all well past retirement age, members of a senior team with a minimum age requirement of 75. "It's gotta be the shoes," says the squad's wry and spry 100-year-old spokesman. "Well, maybe it's the oysters."

Whatever it is, it's working, and not just for Nike's aging boys of summer. It used to be that seniors might be expected to show up and root at their grandchildren's sporting events. But as Nike and its ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, have discovered, that is far from the case today. Now, seniors are almost as likely to play themselves. All across the country, senior leagues are proliferating as older Americans take up sports that a generation ago would have been considered child's play. They've traded rocking chairs for racquetballs, hammocks for helmets.

"As baby boomers get older, they're staying active," says Norm Reilly, director of communications for the National Senior Games Association, the organization that puts on the biennial Senior Olympics. "We're seeing a sharp increase in participation. The Games themselves have grown incredibly quickly. From an organizational standpoint, it's one of those good problems."

At the inaugural Senior Olympics in St. Louis in 1987, 2,500 athletes turned out to compete in events ranging from track and field to swimming. Fourteen years later, organizers expect 12,000 competitors to descend on Baton Rouge, La., this July for the 2001 Summer National Senior Games. Aged athletes will hail from all 50 states and go for the gold in 18 sports.

"I tell people they have no idea what they can accomplish until they get up and get down to business," says Mavis Albin, the 64-year-old team captain of the Louisiana Tigerettes 50+ Hi-Tops basketball team.

"I absolutely loved basketball in high school," Albin says. Then marriage, a business career and three sons put hoops on hold for decades. "One day, I read about the Senior Games in the paper, and I told my husband, 'I'd love to do that.' He said, 'Mavis, why don't you?' " She contacted the Tigerettes and, after a few workouts, they invited her to join the team.

"It's the most wonderful experience," Albin says. "It really helped me through a difficult period in my life. Being active, working out with people you like is great therapy." Then there are the fitness benefits: "When I started, I was exhausted after two minutes. I hadn't exercised regularly in years. Now I can run the whole game without getting tired."

Since 1993, Albin and her six teammates have won three gold medals in the Senior Olympics. During this streak, they've compiled a Michael Jordanesque record of 62 wins against a mere two losses while barnstorming the country to compete against other mature cagers. Along the way, they've become role models -- for their peers and also, significantly, for younger people, who find inspiration in their prowess.

"We were invited to practice with the Louisiana State University women's basketball team," Albin says. "Some reporters came to watch, and one of the college girls told them what a positive influence we are. I thought that was wonderful."

Nikki Leader is the Tigerettes' young cub. When not draining jump shots, she is a coach and gym teacher at Glen Oaks Middle School in Baton Rouge. The inner-city school has been very supportive of Leader's basketball career, in part because it makes her a better educator.

"You have to have something going on to gain the respect of kids," she explains. "The success of the Tigerettes impresses students. They listen when I'm trying to express the importance of exercise and a healthy lifestyle. It makes me proud."

Being role models to youth is not all the Tigerettes have in common with their more famous -- and younger -- counterparts in professional sports. In another sure sign of the times, the team has a corporate alliance. The golden girls use and tout Osteo Bi-Flex, a dietary supplement marketed by Florida-based Rexall Sundown Inc. The country's top-selling nutritional supplement for joints, Osteo Bi-Flex seems a perfect match for the grandmotherly Tigerettes.

In Texas, members of the Austin Wanderers men's soccer team can vouch for the growing audience for such pitches, if not for the product itself. Two-time defending national champions in 50-plus soccer, they say the competition gets stiffer all the time. Last year's national tournament drew 39 teams, up from 19 in 1999. The U.S. Amateur Soccer Association, which organizes the championship, expects the number of teams to almost double again at this June's tournament in Beckley, W.Va.

"People are getting better information about fitness as they age," says Ray Stewart, executive director of the Fifty Plus Fitness Association, a non-profit organization that preaches the gospel of physical activity and exercise. Since Fifty Plus was founded 22 years ago, Stewart has seen more and more interest in balance and flexibility training, strength conditioning and diet. To meet that growing interest, a year and a half ago the association launched a six-week adult fitness camp where people work out in a group setting. The camp has proven so popular that Fifty Plus hopes to go national with it in the near future.

"Finding a partner to train with is a big factor in beginning an exercise regimen," Stewart says. Thanks to programs like his and to the surging popularity of adult leagues, that's now easier than ever for seniors.

Kevin Markey will be eligible for the Senior Olympics in 2020. He hopes the Sunday crossword is recognized as a sport by then.

Photo by DARREN CARROLL for USA WEEKEND